When I first started out, some of the guides only received 68,319 visitors, while others received 128,582 visitors, but I quickly learned what to do and what not to do. Since then, all of my guides have been getting at least 361,494 visitors.

If you want to create guides that generate hundreds of thousand of visitors, here is what you have to do:

Only write on advanced topics

I noticed that every time I released a guide on a topic that has already been beaten to death or one that is basic, I barely got any visitors. For example, the guide to online marketing for beginners only received 68,319 visitors.

On the flip side, my guide on growth hacking has already received over 414,209 visitors.

Every time I release a guide on an advanced topic, I receive at least a few hundred thousand visitors.

The same trend exists with my blog. Every time I write on an advanced topic and give detailed steps, my traffic goes through the roof. And basic blog posts tend to flop.

If you are going to invest the time and energy into writing a detailed guide, make sure you pick advanced topics that are continually growing in popularity. You can check this by using Google Trends.

All you have to do is enter in a keyword or phrase of the topic you are trying to write about such as “growth hacking.”

As long as the graph is going up and to the right at a rapid pace, like the graph above, there is a good chance that if you write on that topic, you’ll get a good amount of traffic.

Once you have your advanced topic, you are now ready to find a writer.

How to find reputable writers

If you are a natural born writer and you have the time to create a detailed guide, that’s great! If you don’t, then you’ll want to search for a writer.

A great place to start finding them is by browsing other blogs in your space. Look for popular writers who get a ton of social shares per post as well as comments. Also look for writers who write in a casual tone as you don’t want a writer who writes as if he or she is drafting an essay.

If that doesn’t work, post a job listing on Craigslist, and you should find affordable writers who are good.

Once you find a few, you’ll want to interview them before hiring. The easiest way to interview them is to look at their past work and have them create a table of contents for your guide.

This will help you determine how knowledgeable they are about the subject matter you chose and how thorough they are with their research.

Once you find a writer, you should negotiate pay. You would want to pay them upon completion. Try not to pay them more than $10,000 for a 40,000-word guide. Ideally, you should be paying them around $4,000 to $5,000 for a guide.

Longer isn’t always better

I’ve written guides that were anywhere from 20,000 to 45,000 words long. The one thing I’ve learned is that guides that are 20,000 to 30,000 words long tend to do as well as the ones that are 45,000 words long from a traffic perspective.

So, from a cost perspective, you are probably better off paying for a 20,000-word guide than for a 45,000-word guide.

I’ve also learned through testing that the optimal number of chapters per guide is roughly 7. Having 10 or even 14 chapters won’t drive you much more, if any, traffic. And making your guide into one or several long pages, instead of 7 chapters, will typically drive you less search engine traffic in the long run.

For example, the guide on doubling your traffic in 30 days and the one on doubling your conversions in 30 days get on average 313% less search engine traffic than the other guides due to the fact that they were formatted as one long page instead of being broken down into multiple chapters.

Lastly, from a design perspective, the more chapters you add, the higher your price quotes will be for illustration work. Which is why I recommend you limit your guide to 7 chapters and an introduction page.

Don’t forget to include experts

One of the biggest traffic drivers to these guides is Twitter. I quickly learned from a few of my guides that the easiest way to get more Twitter traffic is to include expert interviews.

Including industry experts throughout your guide will give you the reason to email them upon releasing it, and they will be much more open to tweeting and promoting it. You’ll also find that other people within your industry will be more open to promoting it because the guide will be considered reputable due to the fact that industry people are talking about it.

My guides that have expert round-ups received at least 3 times more Twitter traffic than the ones that don’t.

If you are going to invest hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars into a guide, you would be foolish not to include expert opinions within it.

Pay top dollar for design

The one thing I learned from others is that you can’t take design for granted. Even before Moz, hundreds, if not thousands, of other websites released detailed guides, but Moz was the first to make a detailed guide look pretty. They spent over $20,000 on design just on the beginner’s guide to SEO.

On sites like Dribbble, you can sift through illustrators and find people who can make your guides look beautiful. On average, you are going to spend $10,000 to $20,000 per guide for an exceptionally good designer, and around $2,500 to $5,000 for a decent designer.

File types matter

Once your guide is done, you will have to find someone to code it. You’ll want to create an HTML version that you can place online. This way people can link to it and share it, and your search traffic should increase.

In addition to that, I highly recommend that you create a PDF version that is compatible with mobile devices and tablets. I didn’t do this with my first two guides, and I literally got over 300 emails from people asking to either make the guide compatible with their mobile devices or requesting a PDF version.

To make things simple, I use Uberflip as it is an affordable piece of software that ensures that your PDFs will work on mobile and tablet devices such as Kindle or iPad.

Don’t forget to promote

Before you release your guide, you’ll want to spend a few days hitting up people within your industry, letting them know about it. This is important because you can get them to promote the guide via Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn.

Although it sounds simple, it works well. I just shoot off emails to people within my industry and say:

Hey [insert your contact’s first name],

Hope things are going well for you and [insert your contact’s business name]. I know you are busy, so I’ll keep this email short.

I just wanted to let you know that I am releasing a free guide for our industry, and it is going to teach everyone about [insert the topic of the guide]. I’m doing this because I feel the industry could use more education, and I love helping people.

I would greatly appreciate it if you can tweet it out or share it. You can find the guide here: [insert URL]

Cheers,

[insert your name]

A lot of people will ignore your email. But typically 5% to 10% of the people you email will promote your guide. This will cause a ripple effect as more people will see it and then promote it as well.

Conclusion

If you follow the steps above, you’ll start attracting thousands of more visitors to your site, generate more backlinks and improve the recognition of your brand.

Guides are one of my favorite methods to market a business, and it has been extremely effective for me because I follow the tips above.

You don’t have to spend tons of time or money creating these guides. You can always write them internally or have your in-house designer make them look pretty.

Nonetheless, you should be creating guides on a regular basis. They are so effective that I release one every month.

If you want to break through to real profits online, you need some serious firepower. For a limited time I’m sharing some select tips and tricks Amazon, Microsoft, NBC & Hewlett Packard paid thousands of dollars per hour for, FREE.

Great post as usual, Neil. I love your guides and find them extraordinarily informative (even on topics I’m well versed in). The majority of us don’t have $10,000+ budgets to create a guide, however. This is an expert, advanced tactic for those that have either built a successful blog already or are working for a creative and large(r) revenue generating organization. People shouldn’t take out a second mortgage in the hopes that creating a guide is going to lead to newfound success. Having said that, the tactics you use for creating and promoting this guides can certainly be applied to other campaigns/concepts.

Hey Jason,
There are some places you can find work for cheaper. I personally use Elance.Com for my hiring needs and you can specify your budget. You’ll want to be very choosy though because sometimes less skilled workers try to undermine better ones by under pricing the service.
As long as you be sure to do a thorough interview and look at previous works, you’ll be able to find a very skilled freelancer for much less than $10,000.
Also, a lot of these points can be adapted for a low budget, just starting out person.
Hope this helps!
-Alex

Your guides rock, Neil. I’ve learned a lot more from them that a very expensive college marketing course I took a while back. The good news is, once these guides have been out a while you could easily convert them for the Kindle Marketplace and reach a whole new audience.

Completely agree with the design, when I switched from a website that looked like it was built in 2005 to a more modern design. I noticed my conversions going up, and more positive comments in general.

Neil, I think this post and the linked guides in this post could be the ultimate solution for any person who wants to exist in online business as well for an Internet/ Digital Marketing Manager like me to serve all of our clients to build more online reputation. Awesome work done. Keep moving

Really appreciate the education, especially around providing advanced content. So many guides are rehashed versions of familiar topics – but to lead our industries we need to challenge ourselves to take it to the next level.

We can consider definitive guides as the next step in content marketing development after ordinary blog posts.

Whereas almost everyone and his dog can write a blog post about some aspect, writing beautiful definitive guides is already a game for bigger players with bigger budgets.

This all evolves to a bigger differentiation between internet marketing players – smaller guys get less traffic, bigger guys get more traffic.

The content like definitive guides used to be mostly in paid segment (paid products). And then you popularized it.

So I think smaller bloggers will need to adjust their content strategies.

One way is to create definitive guides on topics that have not been covered yet (as you suggested), and try to be ahead of bigger guys by providing content faster, although it may be of a worse quality (especially from a design point of view).

Or they can
– focus on a narrower field (e.g. “the definite guide for content marketing for a veterinarian in Los Angeles”),
– focus on another angle of presenting materials (e.g. focus on case studies, not [just] methodology),
– find other way of presenting the materials (e.g. use audio/video/simple animation instead of text/images format),
– not focus on quality of traffic but on its quality (e.g. focus on more quality engagement with their audience – this is what bigger guys are not able to do physically).

So in short, high quality beautiful definitive guides are great for free education of many people, but at the same time great guides raise a bar for the industries. And bloggers need to evaluate their possibilities and decide what to focus on.

Michael, thanks for these terrific additional points. THey are much appreciated.
I like that you spent the time to really go through and break down the article and provide your won tips.
Please let me know if you need anything

Neil, you say that you provide suggestions that are replicable without a big budget, but you don’t show any option other than spending $2,500+ for an “okay” designer. Not very affordable for those just starting out.

Hi Paul!
I actually just posted something about this to a person named Jason.
There are freelance sites (such as Elance.com) where one can hire freelancers to do the work. You can specify your budget.
One thing I didn’t mention to Jason and just thought of now is you could do work trades with people. My friend Ashley Paradise is a newly graduated Graphic Designer and she has a portfolio online, however she hasn’t been getting a lot of work. I posted something on facebook to my friends asking if anyone knew someone who might be able to help me.
Her price? A “designed by” logo on the CD case design and lunch when we talk over the ideas. I also told her I’d give her a bit of commission, too.
-Alex

Hi Neil! Thanks for sharing $$ information about design + writing. Most people arn’t too eager to share financial information, that’s why I love coming back to your blog every week. You’re transparent and honnest, which makes your blog all the more valuable!

What guide topics should I choose on my blog that primarily discusses about the latest in gadgets and technology. Part of the blog also include my opinions and I also post top 5 list every week. Looking forward to your response.

Hey Neil, great ideas as always. i have the issue that i can’t convert the traffic into profit so much. i leave money on the table. can you make a guide or tell me how i could change that? i had 30k plus uv’s a day but the only income was from adsense. i guess that was not optimal. a problem is some sites are fan sites related to a certain videogame (very popular).
thanks

Hey Neil. Thanks for another superb article. I too agree that writing guides is a stellar content marketing strategy. I have helped many small businesses write various guides that are niche specific. It works every time!

There is one thing that puzzles me! You mention spending $4,000 to $5,000 for a guide. Of course you can have great guides for lesser cost, but that’s besides the point. Reading your posts and knowing that ‘closing the deals’ is your greatest passion I think there’s a good reason why you mention those figures. I’m curious to know the reason if you may.

I really like Your Blog a lot and I am try to follow your pattern of writing, which is so user friendly. That is the reason why You are so favorite in this industry? I am a big fan of your Guides and I will surely read the remaining.

Our marketing plan for launching The Ultimate Guide to Successful Email Marketing last week at Vero was largely influenced by the amazing work you’ve done on yours.

So far it’s been a huge success, traffic has increased by over 500%, and it’s been shared over 500+ times. Our strategy was put together by dissecting your interviews and blog posts, and now that you’ve released this post I can see we followed it to the tee. Thanks for helping out, keep it up

Neil,
Thanks again for such valuable information, I am a fan
What would be your recommendation when you are a blogger and do not own a budget in the 10.000+ $ to create the guide ?
Would you start with a basic free guide in order to start acquiring traffic and leverage afterwards, would you propose a paying guide in order to win money and then be able to create the next free guide ?
Any feedback appreciated

I didn’t see this post until AFTER I’d commented below but if you scroll down you’ll hopefully see the comment I made about my own guides on a budget.

If you don’t have money to spend then don’t go splashing the cash as you might not hit the mark the first time or make the money back – just create a guide by yourself on a relevant topic that people want to know about and that you know a lot about.

I create ultimate guides for my blogs but I write them myself and use stock images for the design so they don’t cost much.

I saw a traffic increase of 342% after posting my blogging guide and that one post received more social shares by a long shot than any other posts + over 10 solid links from great blogs.

I’ve linked to my guides below so if you want to see an ultimate guide on a budget scroll down and find my other comment then check them out.

Stuart, thanks for the heads up. I really enjoyed your thorough feedback on the subject. You should check out my forum where you can provide these insights to people who are looking for help in a number of categories related to digital marketing.

thanks again for a great post!
But I wonder: When you have writers to write articles and guides, what kind of work do you do? Do you write the concept and the raw content and the writers make the polish? I think that $5.000 is pretty much for just polishing?
How do you get writers with such SEO- and writing-skills?
Maybe you just say to your team: Hey, make some brilliant guide for topic xyz?
That would be great for a company, but won’t fit for most of the one-man-shows around here..
Anyway, the rules how to make a guide are good to follow, even if we don’t have the budget

I myself write a lot of it, that’s why I am able to get them done for $3000 to $8000. If I had to pay someone to do it all it would cost me at least $15,000 to find someone who knows marketing really well.

Thanks neil for this great post – Here is an tip you can get good writers who can write good blog posts on freelancer.com and i agree what you said that we dont want who just write essay but we need someone who can write engaging blog posts

Great post and my guess is another reason you don’t have a download version as several are requesting is for tracking purposes??? You can see the areas where your readers are interested in which allows you to build the next advanced guide based on where your high traffic areas are. Pure Genius.

Neil I’m hoping to schedule our call soon. Just waiting for a site relaunch so I can apply the teachings from Quicksprout system which I love..

What a greet post Neil, guides proven to bring in a lot of traffic because people want to learn and be educated and as you said the that we should write about advanced topics because the more advanced topics you cover the more people would be interested to read about and the less competition you will have.

Qasim, glad I could help. Thanks for sharing your feedback. I think people enjoy the information because it is pretty easy to implement once you get the ball rolling. Let me know if you need any help along the way

These guides are totally fantastic. They contain information I haven’t seen anywhere else.

Can I do a bit nitpicking:
– Off-white on light green is hard to read for me.
– On some places I would welcome more information why something is done.
– If you make pdfs pretty please make the text selectable.

Wow Neil, I didn’t realize you spent so much cash on getting guides written and designed.

They look awesome and are always good reads so it’s worth it if you’re getting a good return on them – your traffic numbers are insane! Good job!

The Vero email marketing one you mentioned is REALLY good. I enjoyed reading that a lot.

I too have been creating ‘ultimate guides’ recently, one of how to start an EPIC blog and another one on how to find a profitable niche market.

I wrote them myself and didn’t put as much thought into design as I should have tbh.

However both have paid off and the effort was worth it.

The blogging guide caused traffic to increase by 342% overnight thanks to mostly the re-tweets I received from all the experts I’d referenced and then reached out to.

Also landed a few solid links from top blogs and got on the radar of a few more authority bloggers.

Been doing email outreach too like you mentioned (I might steal and modify your template) and whilst it wasn’t as successful as my Twitter outreach it was worth it too, managed to secure a few nice links and tweets.

So you’re spot on that ultimate guides are definitely worth it for most bloggers.

I’m just in the process now of working out what gives a better return – one monthly epic guide or a series of smaller posts.

Haven’t crunched the numbers yet but pretty sure the guides are going to come out on top just be sheer traffic, shares and links.

One thing I have found that is the opposite of your findings is that it actually worked out better for me to post the guide all on one page rather than broken into chapters.

For the first guide I had multiple chapters but only the main page really got shared and there wasn’t much of an increase in search engine traffic or links across those multiple pages.

With the 2nd guide I put it all one one page with in page links for easy access to each chapter and my search engine traffic soared, the social sharing shot up, traffic went up over all other platforms and there were more links.

For anyone reading this who doesn’t a budget to spend they might like to see an example of what can be done without spending a lot of money.

Stuart, thanks for this in-depth/great comment.
I love when people take the time to really dig deep into one of my posts. I will definitely look at your 2 guides. I think guide making is an art, which when perfected, can really go viral. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you

Just a follow up on this – I’ve spent today crunching the numbers seeing what post types are giving the best returns my blog.

I looked at what content provides the most opt ins, social shares and comments based on visitors per post and then worked out an average ‘interaction’ per post type to see what’s performing best and worth focusing on.

Thanks for sharing these tips Neil. I agree with you. There’s no need to spend a large amount of money in order to have a successful outcome. You just have to know the right things to do to stand out from the crowd.

I am a big fan of your Blogs so I Think you should Write on “How to write an Effective Blog” because many of online marketer not able to write a proper content which is convincing to the users and IF you already Write on that topic kindly provide me the URL. Thank You.

Neil, another great post from you. It’s so detailed. I like the tip about writing advanced topics, gave me a new idea on how to write something new. Also, I 100% agree with you that design is very important as well. No one would want to enter a site that’s boring, confusing or both! It may require an investment but it will definitely be worth it in the long run. Thank you! Might be focusing on making guides soon too.

As a writer, I’m glad that the budget you recommend is realistic, but flexible. I would encourage anyone that wants to produce their own guide to work within their budget, but to pay the same amount for words and design. One does not work without the other.

On that note – I’m available for guide writing. I have expert knowledge in psychology – particularly areas of workplace, social, and productivity. I’m also immersed in startups and community building. I’d love to hear about your dream guide!

What I am finding with both my blog and my ebooks, is that people are not reading them right away. They either bookmark my blog post to come back to it when they have time (I do the same thing) and I have had many people tell me they didn’t get around to reading my ebook until a few months later (and they paid for it). People are so busy and so overwhelmed by information that they seem to be setting aside a time just to do all of their reading at once.

So, if people are wondering why they may be getting a lot of downloads for their guides or traffic to their site but it is still not turning into business for them, it could be that potential customers haven’t gotten around to reading your information yet (you sent me this blog post 5 days ago and I am just reading it now).

What I need to work on is creating blog posts with a sense of urgency or time sensitive material so that people do read it right away and not forget about it.

Thanks for the terrific feedback. I love to see when people have implemented my strategies and they have worked. It’s all about creating a sense of urgency and having great calls to action. Thanks for sharing

Really look forward to your guides, and I’m helping a client develop one in their niche. My question is, have you come across any hidden gems for promoting your guides (other than to your visitors, your list, your email outreach, and social media)? You’ve done a great job showing others how to create guides, but that seems like half the battle. Looking back at your promotion efforts, do any stand out as being ones most people would miss?

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About Neil Patel

Neil Patel is the co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and KISSmetrics. He helps companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP and Viacom grow their revenue. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 online marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies in the world. He was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under the age of 35 by the United Nations. Neil has also been awarded Congressional Recognition from the United States House of Representatives. Continue reading